Christopher Lasch

Christopher Lasch (1932 - 1994) was a historian, intellectual and critical social important of the post-war period to the the United States.

Biography

It continues its studies with Harvard and Columbia, sign with the Université of Iowa and finishes its career as professor of Histoire to the Université of Rochester until 1970.

Ideas

Influenced by the ideological current of the school of Frankfurt, Christopher Lasch poses a critical glance with respect to culture industries. In Mass culture or Popular culture, the writer criticizes the definition of the mass culture such as the left “liberal-libertarian” conceives it, and who sees in very critical company of the leisures and company of the spectacles, a preserving thought. Criticisms against the industrialization of the culture are perceived like criticisms of the democracy itself.

True lure according to him, the aiming of democratization of the culture leads to standardize the cultural proposals and to handle the citizens. These liberal values are anchored according to him in the philosophy of the lights, which conceals particularisms and engages a Cultural revolution. It reproaches this ideology for making modernity a concept who dissolves and breaks with any form of tradition.

Comparing the development of France with that of America, the liquidation of the roots and rooting with the profit of the “Melting pot” is the way which the French company takes. It is characterized by the belief according to which only uprooted can reach a true freedom. Denying the design according to which there exists a double cultural circuit, one pressed by the elite, the other by the mass, it is also opposed to a democratization culture which leads to the handling of the population by the media.

Principal works

Culture of narcissism - American life at an age of decline of the hopes ( The Culture off narcissism - American Life in Old Year off Diminishing Expectations , 1979), Climates, 2000,332 pages.

the Revolt of the elites and the treason of the democracy , 1996 ( The revolt off elites and the betrayal off democracy , 1994) Climates, 272 pages.

Only and True Paradise ( The True and Only Paradise , 1991), Fields/Flammarion, 2002,686 pages.

Women and ordinary life ( Women and the Common Life. Coil, Marriage, and Feminism , 1997), Climats, 2006,250 pages.

Mass culture or popular culture? , Climates, 80 pages.

Minimal The Self-service , 1984.

On Lasch

Voices: The Culture off Narcissism, Modernity and its discontents

, p125

, p123

References

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